"Othmigosh!" the woman shouted from halfway across the grocery store parking lot. "What is that? I've never seen anything so cute," she yelped as she drew near, then flitted like a mama bird around a hatchling as she eyed the blue-flame 2020 Corolla Hatchback sporting a black roof and spoiler package.
"It's a Toyota Corolla, ma'am."
"No, you're kidding me," she said, stopping dead in her tracks. "A Corolla? My son would love this car."
"Mine does," I replied. I shared that it comes standard with a full suite of driver-assist technology, gets excellent fuel economy, and comes with best-in-class ratings for reliability and safety.
Tested: 2020 Corolla Hatchback XSE
Base price: $25,355, delivered
Options:
Black roof, spoiler and side mirrors $500 (take)
Adaptive front headlights $419 (take)
XSE preferred package: NAV, 8-speaker premium sound system with subwoofer and amplifier $1,600 (don't take)
Carpet mat package $249 (don't take)
Price as tested: $28,059
Likes:
European-style handling
Comfortable ride
Upscale interior
Well-designed gauges and switchgear
Driver-assist technology standard
Don't like
Cramped rear seats
Small storage space
That it drives as well as it looks was a secret I kept to myself because, at that moment, I was more focused on grocery shopping with Beautiful Blonde than launching into a soliloquy on chassis architectures, centers of gravity, and multilink rear suspensions.
As the median price of new vehicles shot past $35,000 over the last decade, automakers moved to fill the $20,000 to $28,000 niche with an array of keenly engineered and nicely equipped vehicles, from compact SUVs to sedans.
Though not particularly attractive to American buyers, compact cars are a bedrock segment internationally and manufacturers are discovering at least some demand remains on these shores.
Sold worldwide since 1966, the Corolla is the runaway best selling car of all time, with more than 46 million units. That's more than double the second-place VW Beetle, which sold 21.5 million units from 1938-2003, and nearly triple the Ford Model T, which sold 16.5 million from 1908-1927.
Dull but dependable, the Corolla made its mark for the masses because it was cheap to buy, economical to operate, ran forever, and, for the most part, came with four doors.
12th Generation
Those defining characteristics broadened with the 12th generation Corolla. The hatchback was introduced in 2018. A well-received hybrid sedan came next, followed by the sedan, starting at $19,600, as a 2020 model.
All ride on Toyota's new Global Architecture, a body structure that brings together new approaches to engineering, design, assembly, and materials. The result is lighter, stronger, safer, and, best of all, more agile.
The new Corollas ride on a 106.3-inch wheelbase, like their predecessor, yet any commonality ends there. Dynamic performance and stance benefit from a wider front (+0.47 in.) and rear (+0.87 in.) track dimensions. The front overhang was shortened by 1.3 in., and the rear overhang extended by more than half an inch. Height was reduced 0.8 in., and the hood lowered 1.4 in. for better forward visibility, made possible by mounting the engine lower.
Those changes, plus many others, reduced the center of gravity by 0.39 in. That's actually a lot.
Add all that to a new, 169 hp, 2.0-Liter Dynamic Force Engine with either a six-speed manual (deduct $1,100) or CVT and a refined, multi-link suspension, and the effect is quite startling.
No one buys these cars to drag race them, and acceleration is in the acceptable-to-good range: roughly 8 seconds from 0 to 60 and little more than 16 seconds in the quarter-mile. Not as fast a Mazda3 or a Civic with an upgraded turbo engine, but not bad.
Out on the highway is where the new Corolla shines. It has plenty of get-up-and-go to run with the big boys in freeway fast lanes.
Pushed through curves on a desolate stretch of highway at speeds significantly greater than the speed limit, the car is stable, well-balanced and composed. The ride remains comfortable. It ain't quite a Volkswagen GTI, but it costs a lot less, too.
Upscale cabin
With a hybrid, hatchback and plain vanilla sedan, the Corolla comes in 13 distinct models. The grades are L, LE, SE. XSE and XLE. The hybrid averages 52 mpg, gas-powered versions hit 33-34 mpg combined.
All come standard with Toyota Safety Sense, an advanced suite of integrated active and pre-collision safety features that includes a pre-collision system, dynamic radar cruise control, lane-keep assist, automatic high beams, road-sign assist, brake hold, and blind-spot monitor.
While many manufacturers add thousands of dollars in upgrades and option packages to get all these things, Toyota has offered them as standard for several years. For the most part, they are now also standard on the Civic and Mazda3.
Toyota has entered into a partnership with Mazda, and some Mazda thinking is evident in the design and materials in the XSE cabin. Mazda aims to create a near-luxury feel in its cabins, and the upper-level Corollas do, too.
The result is an interior that instead of tolerating, one might come to love. So said Boy Wonder, a Gen Zer in more ways than he'd care to admit. He's also a certified mechanic, so his endorsement of a car is probably better informed than his Baby Boomer dad.
Toyota has Android Auto working beautifully on this model. It worked out the kinks in Apple Car play. That makes Toyota's excellent Nav system redundant. Though it came packaged with a Lexus-like audio system, we wonder if one might take the $1,600 for that package to a local installer and get an even better sound system.
By the same token, we think $250 for floor mats is steep. They won't be custom cut, but you can buy some nice ones for a fifth of that.
We're purists and so we'd opt for the six-speed manual. At that point, we have a nice, European-style hatchback with bullet-proof reliability for right at $25,000.
Such a deal.